


five suitors

by quadrille



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Canon Dialogue, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, During Canon, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Missing Scene, Past Underage, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 00:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12243510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrille/pseuds/quadrille
Summary: Five would-be suitors for Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen: two deaths, two banishments, two husbands. Seasons 1 through 7.





	five suitors

**Author's Note:**

> All of the dialogue except for the last scene is lifted from the show. I just wanted to tinker with this experiment in parallels/contrasts.

> _It’s interesting, these heroes you name. They all fell in love with you._

  


### KHAL DROGO

He’s the first one: her first suitor, her first husband, her first lover _(—and her first kill)_. Daenerys Targaryen is bargained to the khal as a young teenager and she stands before him on shaking legs as he sizes her up like a horse at market. Her entire body is stiff and intractable, and she’s barely able to look at him.

But later that night his touch is gentle, patient, melting all the corners of her as he smooths away the traces of a scared little girl. Until she comes apart, dissolves, is pieced back together.

Her fierce and undefeated husband. When Viserys makes the mistake of insulting his sister again, Drogo bristles to her defense like fire and fury, and she finds him an oddly fitting match for the last Targaryen. The khaleesi straddles her khal in the open air, under the stars and moon. Drogo lives every moment loud and proud and passionate, which wakes her up in return — she finds herself standing straighter, taller, her chin higher, no longer averting her gaze from her brother’s; now, when he hits her handmaiden, she rises back in fury as only a khaleesi would.

But their happiness is short-lived: it’s all headed for that day when she falls to her knees beside her husband’s body, wobbly and weak and a gaping emptiness in her womb. The man is still breathing. The man is still breathing, and yet all the life is drained out of him. This is not her husband.

When Daenerys presses the soft silk pillow to Drogo’s face, smothering his empty stare and scarred face, her own breath catches with tears and it feels like she’s drowning a piece of herself, too.

  


### JORAH MORMONT

When she thinks back to that dreadful aching blurred time after her miscarriage, what she remembers best is Jorah’s hands: scooping her up into his arms, carrying her at a loping and panicked stride to see Mirri Maz Duur. She remembers waking from a fever and finding herself on the floor, crawling towards the dragon eggs with fingers digging into the dust and dirt — but she’s weak. So weak. Her bear picks her up effortlessly again and carries her back to bed, deposits her tenderly on the horsehair mattress. He pauses for a moment to smooth her sweat-slick hair back.

When she’s able to stand once more and faces the massive funeral pyre for her husband, her knight insinuates himself in front of her as if trying to block her path.

“Don’t ask me to stand aside and watch you climb on that pyre,” Jorah says. “I won’t watch you burn.” His voice is ragged.

But she feels only mild surprise, asking: “Is that what you fear?” The girl stands up on tiptoe and kisses his cheek, and walks away. She’s untethered, floating, striding off to seize her destiny.

He’s left watching helplessly after her.

Jorah will come close to admitting it, later — his voice awed and half-broken, _There are times when I look at you and still can’t believe you’re real_ — but it will take years before he does so. It’s the unspoken and unacknowledged truth between them. He’s sworn his sword and his life to her.

And, they both know, his heart.

  


### XARO XHOAN DAXOS

First off, this one isn’t a hero. But he _is_ the richest man in Qarth, or so it would seem — so he says, and so he keeps telling her, and to anyone else who wonders.

You must admit, with that imposing vault, it’s a convincing charade.

“Behind the door? And it can all be mine?” Daenerys is eyeing the massive vault door. She can’t turn off that reptilian brain of hers, the cold and callous one that calculates advantages and opportunities, and she wonders if her dragons would be able to burn through the steel. (Viserys wouldn’t recognise her now.)

“All?” Xaro muses. “Let us say half. More than enough to buy horses, ships, armies… enough to go home.”

“All I have to do?”

“Is marry me.”

She almost laughs. “That was a romantic proposal.”

“I've already married once for love, but the gods stole her from me.” Xaro’s voice is deceptively mild, almost bland, but it rises in intensity: “I come from nothing. My mother and father never owned a pair of shoes. But marry me and I will give you the Seven Kingdoms and our children will be Princes and Princesses.” A beat. “See? I have more ambition than you thought.”

Daenerys considers it. This is one route to the Seven Kingdoms. This is one resource she could theoretically accept. So she looks at the merchant, sizes him up (like horseflesh at auction), considers how he might be of use to her. She might be on the verge of saying yes, later — until Jorah the Andal talks her out of it.

He’s good at counseling caution whenever it comes to any of her suitors; she knows why, of course (she would have to be blind not to see), but it’s always cushioned by sensible rationale and justification and wariness. The jealousy never takes over his actions, and he always finds a way to phrase it in terms of what’s best for Daenerys, the canniest course of action, the one that is safest and most effective for her.

But he is, of course, right.

Later Daenerys stands stoic and unmoving as the vault door slowly swings shut, despite the panic-stricken face of her handmaiden ( _her betrayer_ ). Despite the way Xaro’s eyes show white around the edges as the ill-fated pair clutch at each other in blind fear, their small and insignificant screams echoing in that empty, empty space.

She turns on her heel and walks away, those screams still ringing in her ears.

  


### JORAH MORMONT

Their paths have crossed again, and it seems so inevitable. Daenerys has managed to destroy so many of the people who have gotten too close to her, those deaths wrought by her own hand or condemned by her actions… but Jorah Mormont keeps returning.

“I banished you. Twice. You came back. _Twice_ ,” she says. “And you saved my life. So I can't take you back, and I can't send you away.”

She takes a step closer, but the man backs away like a skittish dog. At Daenerys’ quizzical look, he seems to brace himself and explains: “You must send me away.” The man unrolls his sleeve, exposing—

The withered and cracked flesh, rough with greyscale, pockmarked and spreading.

It feels like someone’s gouged a hole in her heart.

Her mouth is dry as she tries to speak. “Is there a cure?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long does it take?”

“I don’t know that either.” A pause. “I’ve seen what happens when it goes far enough. I’ll end things before that.”

He speaks so nonchalantly of his own death (his own _suicide_ ), but evidently he’s had time to come to terms with this fate. She hasn’t. About to cry and furious with herself for almost crying, all she can think of to say is “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. All I’ve ever wanted was to serve you,” Jorah says gently. The next words come more carefully, haltingly. A confession years in the making. “Tyrion Lannister was right, I… I love you. I’ll always love you. Goodbye, khaleesi.”

He turns to leave then, his familiar shoulders tight, and she’s stricken.

Daenerys blurts out, her raw voice almost sounding angry (but it is not anger): “ _Do not walk away from your queen, Jorah the Andal._ ”

Jorah stops.

“You have not been dismissed. And you pledged yourself to me. You swore to obey my commands for the rest of your life. Well, I command you to find the cure. Wherever it is in this world.” The queen bites her lip, pushing past the tears that want to escape. “I command you to heal yourself, and then return to me. When I take the seven kingdoms, I need you by my side.”

He nods, once.

  


### DAARIO NAHARIS

The sellsword is a useful addition to their retinue, but cocky, arrogant. Flirtatious. He gathers wildflowers for her twice and hands them to her sweetly, almost like an innocent suitor. She’s never had a normal courtship.

And this isn’t exactly normal, either — Daenerys walks into her own bedchamber and finds him waiting cheekily, with no explanation. She reacts with anger at her compromised security, a tight-lipped “Don’t do that again,” but once again, this isn’t actually anger. Frustration with herself, perhaps, for experiencing _want_ again. Frustration with an old and aching need that hasn’t been filled since Drogo died.

“Tell me why you're here,” she demands. It would almost be easier if he’d just come right out and _say it,_ but instead Daario rails about his talents with war and women, and focuses unacceptably on the former. The Second Sons and their underused capabilities. She has no patience for this.

“You've ordered us to be night watchmen,” he grouses.

It isn’t a real argument between them, but there’s a heat and a tension in the room and they’re both very aware of the fact that Daario Naharis is in her bedchamber. Perhaps the biggest frustration is that she’s wanted this.

“Send me to kill your enemies,” the sellsword insists. “Any enemy anywhere. Let me do what I do best.”

“Very well.” Daenerys exhales. “Do what you do best.”

The look in his eye shows that he realises where she’s going, only a split second before she confirms it.

“Take off your clothes.”

> Another day, Daario and Jorah ride side-by-side on horseback: a hopelessly mismatched pair, and yet more similar than anyone might have guessed at first glance. And both of them know it.
> 
> “There’s no escaping her, eh?” Dario says jauntily. “You keep coming back. Why?”
> 
> Jorah’s response is weary. “You know why.”
> 
> “Isn’t it frustrating wanting someone who doesn’t want you back?” Daario is blunt in his usual cockiness, the way he brandishes his relationship with Daenerys in the Andal’s face.
> 
> “Of course it is.” There’s no bitterness in Jorah’s voice; he’s a realist. He’s long-accepted his fate, in more ways than one. So there’s an odd camaraderie here between two men fighting the same war, who know the same troubles.
> 
> “You’re a romantic. I admire that. Sometimes I look at you and I think, ‘So that’s what I’ll be like when I grow old.’”
> 
> “If you grow old.”
> 
> “ _If_ I grow old. I hope I do. I want to see what the world looks like when she’s done conquering it.”
> 
> “So do I.”

  
Daario is completely ignoring the glass of wine he poured, his voice is falling apart, and Daenerys can’t help but wonder how she always winds up in these situations. She’s been cutting off pieces of herself, her heart, each time this happens. Soon she will have nothing left.

“Fuck Meereen. Fuck the people. I’m here for you, not them.”

Daenerys musters together her composure yet again. She becomes colder right under his eye, more queenly. “This is what I command. If I’m going to rule in Westeros, I’ll need to make alliances. The best way to make alliances is with marriage.”

He sits down abruptly, a puppet with its strings cut. Obsolete. “Who are you marrying this time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe no one.”

The man becomes more desperate. He begs. He kneels. He says _I love you._ And in return all she feels is an overwhelming exhaustion and emptiness. Her fingertips ghost across his cheek.

“I can’t.”

* * *

  


The queen is seated on the stairs beside her Hand, the two of them of an equal height for once. “You’re in the great game now, and the great game’s terrifying,” Tyrion says, in the tones of an educated schoolmaster to their student. “The only people who aren’t afraid of failure are madmen like your father.”

“Do you know what frightens me?” she asks, staring down at the stones beneath their feet. “I said farewell to a man who loves me. A man I thought I cared for. And I felt nothing. Just… impatient to get on with it.”

“He wasn’t the first to love you and he won’t be the last.”

She shifts to look at him, and gives a wry smile. “Well, you have completely failed to console me.”

  


### JON SNOW

This one, she doesn’t want to get rid of. When the prospect of him leaving arose, she looked at him in disapproval and helpless anger; the sudden sharp jolt of fear and dismay at the thought of him going.

With Daario, she was the first to initiate, always wielding that imperious tone of command, a queen taking her due.

But now, the rap of Jon’s knuckles against her door announces a shift. She opens it, and she doesn’t even look surprised to see him: their eyes meet, a frisson of awareness and understanding flickering between them. She steps back, allows him entrance. This close, she notices that there’s a faint scar over his left eye, the same as Drogo. The door shuts behind him.

The pair of them seem slightly uncertain now, for a fleeting second. “I,” he begins, his voice rough, but Daenerys doesn’t want to hear anymore. She takes half a step closer and then he closes the distance. They crash into each other; their lips meet; she’s instinctively leaning up on tiptoe to pull him closer.

Jon’s hands are already finding the clasps and ties of her dress, working at their fastenings. Daring. Everyone else has taken her orders, for so long. This time, she’s letting herself be backed against the bed, and they tumble together onto the furs.

She’s looked down on every single suitor since Khal Drogo — yes, even Daario, for how can you reject someone for not being good enough, for being a liability, if you don’t look down on them somewhat, even if they love you, even if you perhaps love them — but here, she can’t. He’s knelt, he kneels, he bows his head to his queen, he’s currently tugging the dress off her shoulders, and yet she still sees the King in the North as her equal.

“I knew you would visit,” Daenerys whispers into his mouth, against his neck. (He thinks she tastes of fire and smoke, still, somehow.)

“Did you?” Jon’s laugh is a bass rumble in his chest, under her hands. “That’s impressive, considering even I didn’t know.”

_You know nothing, Jon Snow._

Ygritte’s voice is a ghost fading faster each day.

“I suspect you did, though,” she says. “On some level. Just as I knew, that day in your cabin—” Her voice cuts short. The memory of his hand tight around hers is somehow more intimate than even this, their skin bared to the furs beneath them.

She feels less lonely at last; her hands are hot against his cool skin, tracing and mapping the scars. This man has almost died so many times. As has she.

Daenerys doesn’t know what this means, where this will lead. There is still that small calculating voice, which has already considered the strength of this potential union, what the king and queen might accomplish if they wed ( _no one would have to kneel then_ ) — but all this analysis is banished by Jon’s kiss, his hands against her slim waist, her own combing into his unruly hair, their bodies rocking together with the movement of the ship.

He wasn’t the first, but he’ll be the last, and their children will be princes and princesses.


End file.
